Hello! I've been getting into cycle.travel recently, it's very quickly becoming indispensable :)
One thing that has been puzzling me is routing over tracks. For instance this track will refuse to be routed upon, even if I drag a waypoint on top of it. If there's an explicit bicycle:yes then it seems to work though, e.g. here.
Obviously the track tag covers all sorts of routes and what's considered cyclable gets very hazy very quickly. It would be nice if it fell back to treating them the same as footpaths, i.e. I could drag a waypoint on top and routed as if I got off and walked for a bit.
Comments
I have just routed a cycle route along that track you appear to have issues with, see link
Pole Lane
Only think i can think of as to why not routing is to check it you have the 'Paths & Roads/Paved' routing option set to Paved.
In the UK, it won’t route along a track unless there’s an explicit access tag (like you say, bicycle=yes or similar). The reason for this is that UK mappers very often mark tracks across private farmland, forestry estates or similar, which aren’t open at all to the public.
As a general rule cycle.travel errs on the side of caution in cases like this – I wouldn’t want people to get shot at by farmers, or at the very least have a miserable ride after having to backtrack around a private farm track!
Yup, that makes sense---I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of a farmer on a quad-bike (again) either. Thanks for replying!
I'm not entirely convinced that tagging "bicycle=yes" is the solution, I know "bicycle=nobody_will_stop_you", but that's not the same as a right of way. Anyway, that's an OSM matter I'll try and find out about.
Mick: Pole lane was an example of a track that did route over for me.